we would have to keep this secret
by wild wolf free17
Summary: [modern-day AU] Bucky turns up in Steve's apartment not to long after Steve's 26th birthday minus his left arm and with a high-tech prosthetic. "Hey, Stevie," he says, slumped in the armchair. "I need your help."
1. Chapter 1

Title: we would have to keep this secret

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from "Secret" by Heart.

Warnings: modern AU; discussion of violence; implied torture

Pairings: Steve/Bucky

Rating: PG  
>Wordcount: 770<p>

Point of view: third

Prompt: Author's Choice, any/any, Song: Secret by Heart

_iWe lead two different lives/  
>Just like two lines that never cross  
>And here we are together  
>Standing closer than we ought...<em>

* * *

><p>James Barnes and Steve Rogers met when they were both six years old because Steve was defending an injured dog from boys trying to hurt her and James Barnes (at that point in his life) didn't believe in unfair fights. One boy against five? Not fair.<p>

Two boys against five isn't all that fair, either, but it did turn them into friends for life.

.

After high school, James Barnes went into the army; Steve Rogers would have, but he couldn't pass the physical. He went to Yale and then joined the FBI instead, and became an analyst rather than the field agent he would've preferred to be.

He and Bucky (as he called James, a holdover from their childhood, a nickname only he used) eventually lost touch as Bucky was sent around the world on ever more classified assignments.

.

Bucky turns up in Steve's apartment not to long after Steve's 26th birthday minus his left arm and with a high-tech prosthetic.

"Hey, Stevie," he says, slumped in the armchair. "I need your help."

.

James Barnes, Bucky tells him over dinner, is believed KIA on a mission that does not officially exist, in a country James Barnes has never officially been to.

"They didn't kill me," Bucky says, eyes on his plate, the metal hand hidden under the table. He changes the topic and Steve doesn't ask for more information.

.

Bucky spends sixth months bumming around Steve's apartment. He cooks and cleans and runs any errands Steve needs run, and he helps Steve with work, whenever Steve needs to bounce ideas off someone. Four months in, Bucky kisses him and after that, they spend all their nights together in Steve's bed.

Seven months after Bucky's arrival, he gets a text. "Finally," he mutters, grinning at the phone.

.

Bucky sits Steve down on the bed Steve only ever thinks of as _theirs_ and he says, "The woman who saved me – she's got the name of the man –" He cuts himself off and clenches his left fist. "I have to go, Steve."

Steve presses his lips together and nods. "Will you come back?"

.

Steve goes to work, comes home, cooks, cleans, sleeps. After two weeks, he pulls himself together because he lived for five years without a single word from Bucky.

A month later, Bucky's waiting for him in bed, bruised and bloody, and he says with satisfaction, "They're all dead, Stevie. Every last one of 'em."

.

Bucky spends two weeks recuperating and then he says, "Nat, she's got work for me. D'ya mind – I'd like to come back." He glances down, then back up at Steve through his lashes. "I'd like to call this home," he confesses.

Steve reaches out to cup his cheek. "I'd like that, too," he says, sliding into Bucky's lap.

.

Steve does not ask what sort of work "Nat" has for Bucky. Bucky never offers details. He does, though, talk about the places he goes, the sights he sees. He brings back little kitschy souvenirs that Steve puts up on the mantle.

He also comes back bruised, with fresh scars, with broken fingers (once), with cracked ribs. Steve just sighs and purposefully doesn't think about it.

.

He knows. Of course he knows.

He tells his co-workers that his boyfriend drives big-rigs.

.

Once upon a time, Steve Rogers thought the sun rose and set on Bucky Barnes.

Sometimes, he still thinks that. Other times… other times, he takes sick days so that he doesn't have the temptation of going upstairs and telling his boss that his boyfriend kills people for money.

.

Bucky holds him close, wraps around him, murmurs, "Love ya, Stevie."

"Love you, too, Buck," Steve whispers, eyes closed, listening to Bucky breathe.

.

Steve will never tell. In fact… when he sees intel from wherever Bucky was last coming into the Bureau, he obfuscates it.

He feels awful after, every time. But. It's _Bucky._

.

"C'mon, Stevie," Bucky cajoles halfway through the summer. "Take a vacation. There's a whole world out there you've never seen."

"Fine," Steve finally says. "I do have weeks of vacation time saved up."

.

When they were kids, they used to plan out the places they'd go to, the things they'd do.

None of that happened – but Bucky's grinning at him, and Steve's doing (mostly) good, and this might not be the future his ma wanted for him, but he's happy, anyway.

.

Steve knows it'll all come crashing down eventually. Until then, though…

"Don't look so serious," Bucky laughs. "We're in fuckin' Paris, Stevie." And he spins Steve into his arms, drags him into a dorky dance, and Steve finally starts laughing, too.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: we would have to keep this secret

Disclaimer: not my characters; title from "Secret" by Heart.

Warnings: modern AU; discussion of violence/torture

Pairings: Steve/Bucky, Natasha/Clint

Rating: PG  
>Wordcount: 1080<p>

Point of view: third

* * *

><p>She's there scouting the place, doing recon for a hit due within the month and none of the idiots present have any clue they've been infiltrated. So far, everything about the scumbag checks out and it'll be a pleasure to kill him, so she decides to do one more pass before heading out and prepping.<p>

She finds the boy on the lowest level, barely alive.

.

He is not, actually, a boy. He's at least her age, possibly a little older. He's curled into the smallest space he can fit and a _very_ technologically advanced prosthesis has replaced his left arm; it is outside of the ball he's made of his body, either as protection or because he derives no comfort from it. Since he is unconscious, she has no way of knowing.

There is a chain connected to both of his legs.

She does not have time for this. She has obligations. The care this man would require –

_Shit,_ she thinks and then goes to track down the target.

.

"Hey," she says, throwing a shoe at him. "Hey, wake up." She cycles through eight languages before he wakes up, shouting in English, so she switches to that. "C'mon, we have to leave. Can you walk?"

He blinks stupidly blue eyes at her. "Wha?"

"This place is going to blow in five minutes," she enunciates slowly. "We have to go. Can you walk?"

"I can damn well try," he says.

She pulls the bolt-cutters from behind her back. "Will you go for my throat if I come closer?"

He looks from the bolt-cutters to her. "I will do my best not to."

His voice is hoarse, his flesh hand trembling, and the prosthesis keeps doing some little shivering thing. She just calmly and surely moves toward him, kneels fluidly by his feet, and removes the shackles as quickly as she safely can. The countdown is steady in her head.

"There you go," she says, scuttling back before she stands. She holds out a hand.

"Why?" he asks, his flesh arm tucked around his torso, pushing up with the prosthesis. He's unsteady on his feet; she does not attempt to help him.

Her only reply is, "One minute."

"Fuck it," he mutters. "Let's go."

.

As they're driving away, she tells him, "I'm Natasha."

He passes out with no reply.

.

"Sergeant James Barnes," he says, and then a long string of numbers.

.

She sends proof of death and then takes Barnes to her closest bolthole. She is still unsure what to do with him – she is no one's idea of a caretaker. He is at least thirty pounds underweight, he has a painful-sounding cough, and the sores from the chains… those, actually, she can deal with.

She calls Clint. "Find Banner," she says. "I've got a patient for him.

.

Once, a long time ago, she was in Barnes' place. Clint was in hers.

The rest is history.

.

"Well, this is awful," Banner says ruefully, staring down at Barnes.

"He's been unconscious for two days," she reports. "Can you fix him?"

Banner gently touches Barnes' cheek and then he sighs, setting his pack on the floor. "It might be more merciful just to kill him cleanly," he says.

She shifts forward slightly; Banner holds up his hands. "I won't unless you ask me to," he assures her. "Just lettin' you know. I'll do what I can."

She nods firmly and doesn't bother warning him.

.

"Nat, what are you doing?" Clint asks.

"I have no fucking clue," she answers.

.

It takes three months before she believes Barnes when he says he's fine again. He spends whatever time he's not sleeping or compulsively showering by diving into classified files she's pulled that all have his name on them.

"Those fuckers," he says and sometimes doesn't come up for days.

She doesn't spend the entire three months with him; for two weeks, while she's on a hit, Hill swings by to babysit.

When she returns, Hill gives her a tight smile. "Let's go for a walk," she suggests.

.

"He was one of ours," Hill says. "It was a trade; I'm not sure what we got for him." She sighs. "He was good, Romanoff. One of the best. This is going to be a goddamned shitshow, isn't it."

She orders, "Tell me everything, Hill."

Hill sighs again and then she does.

.

She settles beside Barnes on the bed. He's not actually sleeping but he allows her to scoot in close. "It goes all the way up, doesn't it," he mutters. "But I still don't –"

"I'll find the name for you," she promises, reaching up to stroke his face, across the brow, down the jaw. Her fingers catch on his lip, where he's constantly biting. "Is there anywhere you can go?"

Barnes is silent for a long time. She lets her fingers rest on his lips, the only point of contact between them. He is attractive, and she knows Clint wouldn't mind - but whenever she looks at him, she sees only that boy, curled in on himself, chained to the wall and hoping to die.

"There is somewhere," he finally says, tilting his face so that her fingers slip down to his throat.

"Go there," she says. "I'll be in contact when I have the name."

.

Clint's flying Barnes back into the States, while she begins preliminary research – everything she's already got plus everything Barnes recovered during his convalescence. Just before he heads to the airstrip, Barnes pauses, reaching for her. She lets him catch her hand.

"Why?" he asks, those stupidly blue eyes pinning in her place before he lets his gaze fall.

She telegraphs every move as she leans in, rises up on her toes, and presses a gentle kiss to his cheek. "Because I've been where you were," she says.

"Natasha," he says and she pulls back, shaking her head.

"Call me Natalia," she tells him. "There was a girl once. She was supposed to die but a good man didn't want to let her." Natalia shrugs. "Go home, Barnes. I'll be in touch."

He nods and turns away, but then looks back. "James," he says.

She smiles at him. "James."

.

It takes seven months. She sends a text.

Clint tells her, "You're gonna make even more enemies."

She grins down at him, setting the phone on the bedside table. "No," Natalia says. "I'm going to make even more corpses out of men who should've known better." She kisses him. "You taught me that."


End file.
